Gratitude

Mary had 2 birthday parties to attend this weekend and Andrew felt like life was pretty unfair. Trying to be a good mom, I planned fun things for us to do while she was at her parties. Party #1 was next door. We dropped Mary off then came home and made a huge pillow fort in the living room. For dinner we ate hamburgers, Andrew's favorite. We hustled through dinner so that we would have time to make a special dessert, refridgerated biscuit donuts (and we never get to make these donuts b/c they have soy flour in them and Mary can't eat them). It was an extra special treat.

Well....Mary came home and eventually the evening ended. As I was tucking Andrew into bed, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "Mary got to go to the birthday party, but I didn't get to do anything fun."

Party #2 was Saturday afternoon at the bowling alley. I promised Andrew that after we dropped Mary off, we'd head to McDonalds and get an ice cream cone. I even caved into going to the McDonalds with the playland. We got ice cream and he had a blast playing for a long time. As we were leaving, he saw the display with the happy meal toys and then was totally upset that he didn't get to get a toy.

Next time, when there are parties and life doesn't seem fair, I think I might just reply with "I know, life isn't fair" and not even try to sugar coat it.